Alyssa Phillip and mother to reappear in court on July 20

Ac­tivist Alyssa Phillip and her moth­er Camille Cares­quero will reap­pear in the Siparia Mag­is­trates’ Court on Ju­ly 20 in con­nec­tion with their ar­rest dur­ing last week­end’s Labour Day cel­e­bra­tions in Fyz­abad.

The two yes­ter­day ap­peared vir­tu­al­ly be­fore Mas­ter Kateisha Am­brose-Per­sads­ingh in the High Court, South, two days af­ter they were ar­rest­ed dur­ing the Labour Day cel­e­bra­tions host­ed by the trade union move­ment.

Fol­low­ing their ar­rest on June 19, they were each grant­ed $60,000 sta­tion bail with­out con­di­tions, pend­ing their court ap­pear­ance yes­ter­day.

Phillip and Cares­quero were al­so ar­rest­ed on May 27, fol­low­ing a protest out­side the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), Rich­mond Street, Port-of-Spain.

The 19 Bul­lets, 19 Protests cam­paign, spear­head­ed by Phillip, came amidst height­ened ten­sions aris­ing out of the de­ci­sion by the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions to in­struct the po­lice to charge Ka­ia Sealy with a slew of of­fences in con­nec­tion with the Jan­u­ary 20 po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing of her boyfriend, Joshua Sama­roo, in St Au­gus­tine.

Phillip’s de­mand for po­lice ac­count­abil­i­ty led the group to pick­et sev­er­al gov­ern­ment build­ings and po­lice sta­tions, in­clud­ing the Red House, the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, the DPP’s Of­fice and po­lice sta­tions up and down the East/West Cor­ri­dor and in the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion.

The two were out on bail fol­low­ing that in­ci­dent af­ter be­ing charged with dis­or­der­ly con­duct and in­flu­enc­ing pub­lic opin­ion in a man­ner prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tion. Those charges car­ry a fine of $100,000 and a po­ten­tial prison sen­tence of five years and two months.

Dur­ing the hear­ing yes­ter­day, Sandy ar­gued that fol­low­ing re­ceipt of the com­plaints and sum­maries of ev­i­dence re­gard­ing Fri­day’s ar­rest, the de­fence dis­put­ed al­le­ga­tions that Phillip and Caras­quero was par­tic­i­pat­ing in a sep­a­rate pub­lic march, dis­tinct from the au­tho­rised Labour Day pro­ces­sion. She said the fac­tu­al cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing their ar­rest were ma­te­ri­al­ly dif­fer­ent from those sug­gest­ed in the re­cent me­dia re­lease is­sued by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

She added, “There ex­ists ex­ten­sive video footage, in­de­pen­dent wit­ness­es and per­sons as­so­ci­at­ed with the or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Labour Day pro­ces­sion who are ca­pa­ble of as­sist­ing the court in de­ter­min­ing what oc­curred. Both Ms Phillip and Ms Cares­quero main­tain their in­no­cence and look for­ward to the mat­ters be­ing de­ter­mined by the Court on the ev­i­dence, rather than by com­pet­ing pub­lic state­ments.”

She added, “As the mat­ters are now be­fore the Court, it would be in­ap­pro­pri­ate to com­ment fur­ther on the ev­i­dence or to at­tempt to lit­i­gate these pro­ceed­ings through the me­dia.”

In a June 20 re­lease, the TTPS said Fri­day’s ar­rest of the two women was firm­ly ground­ed in the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act, Chap­ter 11:02.

The said the ar­rest was “to pre­serve pub­lic or­der, pub­lic safe­ty, and the sanc­ti­ty of the an­nu­al Labour Day pro­ces­sion.”

The TTPS said the trade union move­ment re­ceived per­mis­sion to stage the Labour Day pro­ces­sion in ac­cor­dance with Sec­tion 112, which states that no per­son may or­gan­ise, lead or take part in any pub­lic march un­less a per­mit has been is­sued by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice; Sec­tion 113, which states ap­pli­ca­tions must be made in writ­ing with­in the statu­to­ry time-frame; and Sec­tion 114, which ad­vis­es that the Com­mis­sion­er may grant or refuse a per­mit based on pub­lic safe­ty and pub­lic or­der con­sid­er­a­tions.

The TTPS claimed while the trade union pro­ces­sion was law­ful, au­tho­rised and pro­tect­ed un­der the per­mit is­sued, Phillip and her group was unau­tho­rised to join the pro­ces­sion and had at­tempt­ed to join the pro­ces­sion al­though it was not part of the au­tho­rised pro­ces­sion.

Phillip was charged with be­ing a leader of a march and fail­ing to call on such march to dis­perse, dis­or­der­ly be­hav­iour and re­sist­ing ar­rest. Cares­quero, who was deemed a par­tic­i­pant in the il­le­gal pro­ces­sion, was charged for be­ing present at a march and fail­ing to dis­perse; ob­struct­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer and re­sist­ing ar­rest.